Daydreams
by Imrhien2
Summary: Elisabeth and her niece were orphaned after the fire destroyed the Opera. They see Tobias, also a former Opera employee as their guardian angel. But are they sure he is who they need? Please read and review!
1. introducing

It was a cold day in November and times were difficult for the people in Paris. Poverty was a common sight in the streets and since the Opera had burned down, over two-hundred former employees had become homeless. It were mostly the stage workers and the ballet rats who were bound to live in the streets and find shelters in old warehouses. This included the sixteen year old Elizabeth. If possible, she had an even more difficult time keeping herself alive since she had to take care for her niece as well.

Anna, who just turned six, came to the Opera two years ago. She thought it was just for a while, but unfortunately Elizabeth knew better. Her mother, who was actually Elizabeth's aunt, had sent her away to be with her new lover who hated kids. She promised her she would be back one day soon, because she was going on a vacation for a while, but she never returned home.

Elizabeth never knew her parents. Her father was killed when she was just a baby, he wasn't guilty, he just got hit by a lost bullet. At least, that was what her mother used to tell her. She also died when Elizabeth was just a child. She was five years old when her mother gave birth to her second child and died in childbirth. Her sibling, of which she never knew whether it was a boy or a girl, died just two days later. She was found wandering on the streets by Mme. Giry, who took her in to live at the Opera, just as she had done with many other girls who had become young orphans and were otherwise bound to live in the streets of Paris forever, or live at the orphanage, which was a terrible place to grow up.

Yes, things had gone from worse to better to worse once again for Elizabeth and her niece, but she knew they would manage, they always did.

Because it was a Saturday, the market was in town. The two girls were strolling down the streets, their stomachs grumbling at the smells of freshly baked breads, delicious fresh fruits and all sorts of meat laying in the stalls of the salesmen, patiently waiting to sell their goods.

They walked towards the corner of the street, where a tall, skinny man in his mid-twenties appeared to be waiting for them.

"Tobias!" Anna yelled. She ran up to him and flew right into his arms. The man picked her up easily, swung her around for a couple of time, which, by the sound of her squeamish laughter's, she didn't mind at all, and put her down again.

The now dizzy look on Anna's face made Elizabeth laugh as she walked up to Tobias to greet him.

"Hello miss," he said with his gallant voice, only to make a little bow towards Elizabeth right afterwards.

"Hi Tobias," Elizabeth said, still half laughing of what just happened. "Did you bring us anything to eat today?" She asked him with a much more serious, almost sad face.

"Yes, I did." He smiled at the two of them "Follow me!"

Tobias was leading them to the very end of the market and then turned left into a dead end street. They climbed through an open window of an old warehouse, took two stairs up and ended up in a small but cosy room with two worn-off chairs, a little table with a few pictures of an old man and woman and a young boy on it, and a pile of blankets, which served as a bed.

This was Tobias' place. Even tough he had a home he could return to, he had chosen not to after the fire. He told his parents that his heart belonged in Paris now, not in London, where he was born. This devastated his parents because they never liked the idea of their only son being in Paris anyway, but he was already an adult and had to make his own choices in life. They supported him by sending him some money and needful things like clothing, candles and once in a while a new blanket. He never liked the idea of still being looked after by his parents at the age of 24, but he accepted the things they send him, not only to use for himself, but also for the use of the two young girls he had grown to love in the years they spend so much of their time together at the Opera. He had worked there as a stage boy since he was sixteen years old and thought he would never have to leave the place he loved so. Unfortunately, the fire destroyed his dream as well.

Three people were now in the small, cosy room, eating bread and fruits as they sat on the blankets and were chatting and laughing. It were a few wonderful hours without having to worry about anything.

It was getting late and Elizabeth decided they should go home for the night, but Tobias didn't like the idea of them walking through the mostly unlit streets, especially not in this cold weather.

"And besides," he argued, "Anna is already asleep. Why don't you just spend the night here, I've got plenty of blankets for you to use, and you could go home as soon as it gets light again."

He was right, Anna was already sleeping between the pile of blankets, only her head was sticking out of it. It gave Elizabeth a warm feeling to see her asleep so peacefully.

"Alright," she gave in "We'll stay here for the night, but only because Anna appears to like it here," she joked.

She crawled under the same pile of blankets as her niece was under and fell asleep almost immediately.

Tobias, on the other hand, didn't feel like sleeping at all. He sat on one of the chairs, leaning on its left arm, just looking at the two peacefully sleeping faces in the dim light of the few candles they had lit an hour before.

Every time he looked at Elizabeth's face he knew he loved her more than he should. He could still remember the day they met. She was only eight years old at the time but she danced with the elegance of a professional dancer. She had made a mistake by tripping over one of the girls foot and he had to take care of her ankle. They became friends right away and they had been ever since. But as she grew older, his feelings for her had started to change. She had turned into a beautiful little woman and that didn't go unnoticed by a lot of guys. He protected her against those guys and yet he couldn't help but falling in love with her himself. **If only she knew**, he thought.

He was getting tired, so he gently took one blanket off the pile, crawled onto his chair, blew out the candles and closed his eyes. He thought he heard footsteps inside the building, but then again, he was already half asleep. **That's something to worry about in the morning**, he thought, and went off into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	2. Erik

It was on that same cold November day that a tall, cloaked man was following around two young girls through the streets of Paris, only to assure their safety. He watched them while they were strolling down the market with their faces eagerly looking at all the food they knew they would never get without any money. He watched them greeting a tall, skinny man, probably at his mid-twenties, and followed the three people to, assumingly, his house. They stayed in there for a long time and the man knew they were safe now for at least an hour or two.

He decided he would stay around today, not just because he felt better about it, he didn't have anything better to do anyway.

He sat down on an empty crate, probably used to carry around fruits or vegetables and now carelessly dumped in this nearby dead-end street, and leaned against the wall. Cold, hard bricks touched the right side of his face, the only side of his face with which he was able to still feel anything at all. The other side of his face was hid behind a white, porcelain mask, and only one other person in the world knew what a distortion lay behind it.

A single tear rolled down the man's right cheek as he thought of his past.

Since he was a child, he had lived in the dormitories of the Opera Populaire. He was brought there by Mme. Giry, who rescued him from a cruel, gipsy family that treated him as if he were an animal. He was bound to travel around with their carnival, trapped in a cage, humiliated for years in front of thousands of people, only because he was born with half a distorted face. They had called him the Devil's Child, and only few had known his real name, Erik.

All those years he had spend in the dormitories, his house, were years of loneliness. In those years he had thought himself how to play music and became perhaps the best composer the world had ever known. Ironically enough, the world was to cruel for him to get to know better. And those few who did know him, or better said, had heard of him, would only describe him as an insane murderer, haunting the Opera in search for blood.

His heart was broken by the young soprano named Christine. He had forced her to love him and he knew now he had done wrong. If only he wasn't blinded by rage when she pulled off his mask and let the chandelier crash down, maybe then, the Opera would have still remained in all it's glory and his home wouldn't have been destroyed by men and women filled with hatred.

**Oh well**, he thought, as he slowly came back to reality again, **I shouldn't dwell in the past, I should watch over those who need it the most right now.**

And as he thought those almost heroic thoughts, he looked around and noticed that the sun was setting and the noise on the streets was a lot less than when he first arrived here.

Erik was about to get up when he noticed a grey cat was staring at him only two feet way as if he were to say _"feed me". _The cat tilted his head just a little bit to the left as if he was questioning why the man in front of him looked so funny and Erik couldn't help but to laugh at it.

God, it felt good to laugh.

"So, you want something to eat huh?" He spoke to the cat. The cat must have understood at least a bit of what Erik was talking about because he jumped up a few crates which were piled up against the wall and came back a few minutes later with a dead mouse in his muzzle. He put down the mouse right in front of Erik's feet and was waiting for him to accept his humble gift.

Erik picked up the mouse, a little astonished by the fact that the cat wanted him to be his friend. For the cat, this gesture of acceptance was obviously enough to be friends since he was now rubbing his head against Erik's legs and gently began to purr.

He stroke over its head and the cat rolled around on its back, trying to catch his hands with its paws.

"I guess I'm stuck with you now, right?" He asked laughing.

"So," he said like the cat would actually respond, "now I'm going to have to name you, of course. I'd suppose just calling you 'cat' won't do."

Suddenly he realised that, in order to name the cat, he would have to know its gender first. He picked him or her up and found himself happy with the outcome.

"Good, you're a girl, now I can call you Isabel." He smiled at the cat satisfied before putting her down. He had remembered that name for years after reading it in a book. It was strange how some things never seemed to disappear from your memories.

Meanwhile, it had gotten much darker in only a few minutes and Erik was waiting for his protégées to come out. But they never came. He decided to take a careful look inside the house.

He climbed through he open window, followed by Isabel, and had to decide which way to go now. He only knew they always went here, but this building was big and he had never gone inside before.

He took a wild guess and went up the stairs without making any sound. Soon he learned that his wild guess was the right one. He heard voices coming from the door at the end of the hallway on the second floor.

"It's getting late, we really should be going now." That was Elizabeth, the older one. He would never mistake her voice for anyone else's. She sounded like an angel, even when she spoke.

"No, I won't let you go out in the dark all by yourselves. It's too dangerous and it's freezing out there. "And besides," the other voice argued, "Anna is already asleep. Why don't you just spend the night here, I've got plenty of blankets for you to use, and you could go home as soon as it gets light again."

That was Tobias, the man they trusted so much.

Erik wished he could tell them the truth about him, but Elizabeth would never allow him to come anywhere near her or her niece. She hated him with all her heart after what he did to Christine. They had been like sisters for years, but Elizabeth had warned her for her "Angel" and yet, she wouldn't listen. Now, they had both ended up hating him.

The only man Elizabeth and Anna would trust was Tobias. And Erik knew almost certainly that they were now making a similar mistake with him as Christine had done with Erik. The only problem was, Erik's intentions were good. He wasn't so sure whether or not Tobias' were too.

Apparently, Elizabeth had decided they should stay as the voices had stopped talking a few minutes earlier.

Erik got up from the stairs he had been sitting on and walked slowly towards the door at the end of the hallway. He waited for a few moments to hear if they were all asleep. Considering the loud snoring, he knew, at least Tobias was fast asleep.

He opened the door, which went a lot easier than expected, and there, on the floor, were the two girls he had been protecting ever since the Opera had been as good as gone. He was satisfied to see at least Tobias hadn't fell asleep next to Elizabeth and Anna but instead had sunken down into one of the two similar chairs on the other side of the room.

Even though the one present window in the room hardly let any of the moonlight through and no other source of light was available, Erik was able to see everything quite clearly, as if at least one candle was lit. This, of course, had everything to do with the fact that he had spend almost his entire life in the darkness, and got used to walking around without any light in order not to betray himself wandering around through the Opera at night.

With an inaudible sigh he left the spot he had been standing for quite a while, now realising that all that time, he had been staring at Elizabeth's peaceful face. **Don't even think about it**, he warned himself. He paced quickly through the streets of Paris, back to the one place that had always been his home and he just couldn't part of. He reached the back of the Opera and disappeared behind a small, weather-beaten iron gate, leading to a narrow spiral staircase and eventually down to what had once been his home.

Numbly, he walked into what was left of his house and walked straight to his swan bed, which was remarkably the only thing the mob didn't trash. Perhaps because the curtain that separated the bed from the rest of the room was down and the mob was so furious, they didn't look any further beyond their noses. He could only guess.

He couldn't bring up the strength to look at his organ, or at least what was left of it. He had seen it once after it had been damaged and had been sobbing over it for days. He had thrown a blanket over it after that and decided not to look at it for at least a very long time.

Crawling into his bed and blowing out the candle he had put next to it, he turned around while he suddenly realised he hadn't seen Isabel since he had walked up to Tobias' room earlier that evening. He made a mental note to go find her in the morning before he fell asleep and dreamt the same dream as ever.

* * *

**Hi everyone, just to say, this is my very first fanfic actually translated from Dutch to English which means it costs me double the amount of time a normal fanfic requires to write. I'm hoping for a lot of (good) reactions, but mostly honest ones so I can get a real image of what you guys think of it. Don't feel guilty to say so if you think it sucks, but just tell me why instead if you feel this way about it. I'm really trying not to make it Mary-Sueish so go easy on me please!**

**I'm working on the third chapter now, but since school is coming back in the picture agian ew it's probably going to take me a few days longer than I want it to.**

**Last but not least, these first two chapters are mostly just to introduce the main chapters and their dayly lives (even tough Erik really needs no inroduction), and are therefore a little low-action like. I'm aware that almost this entire chapter is about Erik, but I'm sure neither of you can really hurt me for that (A).**

**P.S. Feel free to point me at grammar mistakes, I'm still learning my english.**


End file.
